I’m not sure when the last time you looked at the MLB standings is, but if its been a while, there are probably a few things you might not have noticed. First, the Orioles are in first place. Nobody’s been talking about them as the Red Sox’ pitching woes and Yankees’ hitting concerns get all the press, but Baltimore is quietly second in the AL in runs with an average pitching staff that keeps them in games.
Next, the White Sox have fallen off a cliff. Their still .500 but have fallen all the way to 4th in their division and don’t seem likely to rebound any time soon.
Over in the AL West, the Rangers are running away with things. They have a 9 game lead on the second place and resurgent Astros and have 4 more wins than anyone else in the AL.
In dead last in the Al West, behind no one, sits the LA Angels. The Angels are losers of 9 of their last 10 and at just 32-47 are 19 games out of first place. It is safe to say that the Angels’ 2016 has been a bit of a disaster.
The Angels can’t hit, they can’t pitch, and they have no help coming from the minor leagues. In fact, only three teams in baseball have a worse record than LA: the Twins, Braves, and Reds. The Twins have some really promising position player prospects, some payroll flexibility, and some assets to trade. The Braves were tanking this year anyway and are building for next season. The Reds have some guys to shop too and an above average farm system. I think then, given the fact that the Angels’ farm system is ranked dead last in the major leagues,not really even close to the next worst team, its fair to say that no team has a darker present and future than the Angels.
That’s kind of a crazy thing to say. For one, the Yankees have no pitching besides Masahiro Tanaka and a group of old, boring, bad position players clogging up roster spots for years to come. For another, the Angels have the best player in baseball.
Mike Trout is currently leading the AL with 4.8 wins above replacement. If he finishes with the highest total, it will be the 5th consecutive season that Trout leads the league. That’s crazy. Mike Trout is far and away the best most valuable player in the AL, a league, mind you, that has Manny Machado and a bunch of other great young players in it too.
Trout hits for power, he has 17 homers and hit 41 last year, and average, he’s batting .323. He plays great defense in center field and all told is worth so much more than an average player at his position that its almost hard to imagine a team with him on it being bad.
But the Angels have found a way.
Let’s start by talking about their pitching. The Angels have given up more runs than any team in the AL aside from the Twins. Their best pitcher statistically has been Nick Tropeano, who hasn’t pitched since late May due to injury and was recently activated from the DL only to be optioned to AAA. Tropeano has a 3.25 ERA and a 1.3 WAR over 10 starts this season.
Aside from Tropeano the Angels staff lacks even one other pitcher worth at least 1 WAR. Of their starters, only Matt Shoemaker breaks .5. Jered Weaver, the former Ace of the staff, leads the team with 16 starts but his ERA is over 5.5 and his fastball averages less than 84 mph (!) at this point in his career. He’s basically Jamie Moyer without the feel and he’s getting shelled. Weaver is at the end of his rope as a major leaguer.
The aforementioned Shoemaker isn’t much better. He’s the best starter currently on the roster but he’s sporting an ERA over 4 and has a WHIP of over 1.2. Hector Santiago has a -.3 WAR in 16 starts. Jhoulys Chacin is bad too.
Then there is Tim Lincecum. The former Cy Young award winner picked the Angels for his comeback tour and my suspicion is that the utter lack of any competing starting options played a big role in why. Big Time Timmy Jim has made 3 starts this season and given up 19 hits in 13.1 innings. So there’s that.
In the bullpen, Cam Bedrosian has been really good but closer Huston Street has been really bad, he’s giving up nearly two hits or walks an inning and has thrown just 15 thanks to injury. There isn’t any real saving grace in the bullpen.
This is team that doesn’t have any pitching at all and doesn’t have any coming down the pipe either. There’s no young minor league fireballer just waiting in the wings. There’s nobody. The top pitching prospect in the system, Victor Alcantara, posted a 5.63 ERA in High-A last season.
On offense, aside from Trout, the good players include Kole Calhoun, a good but not great major league starter, Yunel Escobar, a good veteran infielder who will almost certainly be traded for a prospect of two in July, CJ Cron,a first basemen with power potential who hasn’t come close to figuring it out at the MLB level, and the ghost of Albert Pujols.
The Artist Formerly Known As The Machine has turned himself into a double play prone, low average, dead pull power hitter. Something that might be valuable if the Angels weren’t paying Pujols more than $25 million a season for the next 6 years to do it. Pujols is, at this point, a great guy and a roster clogging nightmare. The rest of the non-Trout guys are at best pretty good players, something that’s a dime a dozen in the majors, and at worst just bad.
Save for Andrelton Simmons, who is an All-Star caliber shortstop who has been sucked into the morass that is this terrible team this season and hasn’t hit a lick.
Trout is a fan’s saving grace, he’s fun to watch and will be fun to tell your grandkids about. Beyond him, this is the worst case scenario for a fan: a bad team without exciting players, without even one ‘go out of your way to watch him’ pitcher, and with nothing coming up from the minors. These are dark times in Anaheim.
But at least there’s Trout
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